Close Your Eyes: A Tragedy In Three Parts
by DramaDramaDrama
Summary: Surrounded by oblivious tourists, nineteen year-old Helena Tenuis has a vision of the upcoming slaughter on her way to the throne room. Acting instinctually, she does all in her power to go unnoticed during the feeding — a split-second decision that will change her life forever. Slight Marcus/OC. This is NOT a romance.


**Disclaimer**: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight, I don't. I am making no financial gain from this, and no copyright infringement is intended.

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**CLOSE YOUR EYES**

A Tragedy in 3 Parts

_PART I: Eyes Wide Open_

The sun was just going down over the peaceful Italian smalltown of Volterra, coating the city in a layer of alabaster and rosé, when the old gray VW rabbit finally came to rest after hours and hours of endless highways and traffic jam. Where the driver of the car had come from, people would have stopped to shake their parfumed heads in disagreement at the dented, scratched piece of metal — here, the twenty something year-old car vanished effortlessly in a sea of oldies. A smile lit up the young woman's face. She had made the correct decision, she was sure now. It had been worth it.

Helena Tenuis, the only daughter of two programmers, was nineteen years old and the proud obtainer of a spot as a student in the local university's ancient history department as well as a part-time job as a babysitter for the wealthier children in her town. The combination could be draining at times, but finally, after three years of watching over unbehaved kids, she had saved up enough money for a one-week trip to Tuscany; fulfilling her childhood's dream.

An university acquaintance of hers had once told her of the perfect beauty that existed in Volterra, having visited the city once himself, and after seeing the smalltown's low hotel prizes, she had impulsively chosen it as her first destination.

Quickly restraining her long black hair into a messy bun, Helena grabbed her handbag and exited the car, a gift from her parents. Her eyes widened at the sight before her.

The _Piazza dei Priori_, as a sign identified what seemed to be the city center, seemed to glow in the light of the sundown. Countless tourists swarmed around, merrily chatting and taking pictures. Faraway laughter sounded in the background, likely originating from one of the many restaurants that were located in the ground floors of the old, sand-colored buildings that gave the _Piazza_ its form — a perfect rectangle. Where there were no restaurants, there were cafés, hotels, bookstores or souvenir shops; all in all, a flawless tourist resort. Upon closer inspection, there was only one building which housed not a single establishment within it.

Intruiged, Helena turned towards what seemed to be by far both the oldest and the most mysterious of the houses. A large crowd of people had gathered infront of the somehow darker than the rest six-story building, excitedly photographing its facade. In a split-second decision Helena decided she had nothing to lose, making her way to join the unusual gathering.

"Welcome," she was instantly greeted by an unnaturally pale, stunningly beautiful brunette young woman. "My name is Heidi and I am the tour guide. Are you interested in joining a free tour of the historical Castle of Volterra?"

Helena's curiosity peaked as she realized that the name 'Castle of Volterra' had not once popped up during her online research the night before, and therefore was completely unknown to her. She was the kind of person that seeked comfort in knowing everything about a place without ever having entered it due to long research, but she had never been one to not be fascinated by the thrill of the unfamiliar.

As a third semester student of ancient history, she knew that, especially in small cities such as this one, historical sites and tourist attractions were often not listed online due to lack of interest and high maintenance costs. And so, as Heidi presented her with a wide smile, she could not help but willingly not withstand the temptation.

"I'd love to," Helena announced her intentions, presenting Heidi with a polite smile of her own.

"Wonderful," the woman commented, and for the very first time Helena managed to look at her eyes. She felt a wave of panic wash over her; Heidi's eyes were neither gray, nor green, nor brown, nor blue — they were bright violet.

"Your eyes-" she wanted to confront Heidi, but she had already disappeared to gather new tourists.

Calm down, the rational part of her reassured her. It could just be a genetic defect. Or maybe they're contacts and she wears them for fashion purposes. 74 kilometers from Florence, everything is possible.

She stood silently and waited in anxious anticipation for the following minutes, trying to make herself forget about Heidi's eyes and concentrate on the surely near ancient building, yet in vain failed miserably. Helena was well aware that judging people from their looks was more than simply wrong — but somehow, she could not believe her own rational logic anymore. Somehow, she obtained a feeling; a feeling that the violet irises were not contacts' work, and even if they were, that Heidi was still hiding something.

Soon, fear and anxiety joined the panic inside of her. She wanted to walk away, never take this tour and continue her hard-earned holidays as if nothing had happened. But whenever she risked a glance at Heidi to verify her assumptions, she felt as if, truly, there was nothing more she wanted than to stay.

Four minutes had passed since Helena's agreement to take the tour when Heidi, stepping on a small podium near the Castle, spoke up.

"Good afternoon!" she greeted her audience, and immediately, all speaking vanished into eery silence. "As most of you will know, my name is Heidi, and I am going to be your tour guide for the Castle of Volterra today."

Cameras flashed as people tried to take a picture of their slightly anomal tour guide infront of the subject of her tour.

"Now, for the sake of other's enjoyment, I must ask you to hand over all of your electronic devices for the sake of conservation of the halls as well as other's enjoyment."

Some groans went through the audience, yet, surprisingly, most tourists followed Heidi's instructions without further objections or experiencing even a millisecond of doubt. Helena did not belong to them. If, verifying her assumptions, something went terribly wrong during the tour, who would she be able to call for help? Who or what would she be able to turn to?

Eventually, she was one of the last to have not given their electronic possessions over. She was just comtemplating giving Heidi only her camera and continuing to hide her mobile phone in her purse when, as said woman shot her another smile, she felt her feet move unwillingly towards the big, blue plastic bag in Heidi's arms. Betrayingly, her right arm moved and removed both items from the safety of the handbag, dropping them into the depths of the garbage bag.

As Helena quickly made her way back towards her earlier spot in the crowd, she felt the anxiety reach new highs within her. And while her brain could offer not even one possible explanation for it, she knew that, somehow, Heidi had made her body betray its mind.

"Follow me," she almost dictated.

Mindlessly, the tourists followed their tour guide, not once looking back as Heidi knocked on the grand wooden entry door, only to see it opened seconds later by a shy, timid-looking blonde in a tight dress similar to Heidi's, a forced smile plastered onto her sophisticated face. Quietly the crowd made its way into a long, maze-like dark corridor, flooring consisting of uneven pieces of stone while the walls were decorated by the finest of tapestries and shockingly flawless oil paintings.

Light was a scarce good, the only source of it originating from windows in the ceiling which came up unevenly every few meters. Apart from the sound of the tourists' footsteps, though, the hallway was surprisingly silent — not even Heidi, the supposed tour guide, spoke a word. Panic filled Helena once again. Why was Heidi not pointing out historical details? All she wanted was to leave, to walk back out into the light of the day oblivious from the upcoming danger she was expecting. Frightened, she formed a quick plan: she would fake an illness and ask Heidi for a quick exit.

"Heidi?" she almost whispered, surprised by the almost physical pain she was forced to fight back against for merely one word to leave her mouth; as if there was a brick wall infront of her lips, and she had to fight for her words to make it through.

Instantly, the pale brunette at the very front of the crowd turned, eyeing Helena suspiciously. "Yes?" All politeness, all forced happiness had disappeared from her voice, leaving behind naught but annoyance.

"I..." With every word, the pain increased in magnitude, threatening to drown her in its depths. Still, Helena continued, weighing each one of her words. "I feel dizzy," she continued weakly. "Is there an exit somewhere?"

All of a sudden, a smirk appeared on the tour guide's flawless face, only to disappear again within the blink of an eye. Arrogantly, Heidi shook her head. "I am sorry, but there is only one exit and entrance. The tour will be over soon, though."

If Helena had thought her panic and anxiety levels had already reached a maximum, she had been mistaken. Now, as the weight of her observations crashed down on her slim form, she felt her heartbeat increase to an unhealthy hastiness and her breathing turn rigid. The dizziness she had faked suddenly became a dreadful part of reality. Helena threatened to lose her balance and fall as she noticed the ruthless headache that had taken hold of her.

There was only one word, one thought occupying her mind. Panic. P-A-N-I-C. PANIC.

Close your eyes, an irrational, instinctual part of her suddenly demanded. Too panicked to be able to separate between useful and useless ideas anymore, she followed the demand.

Instantly, a scene played out infront of her inner eye.

_A loud sound was audible as Heidi locked the heavy wooden doors shut behind her tour group, several tourists turning around in both surprise and sudden anxiety. A childlike, somehow smooth sounding laughter errupted from the other end of the room._

_Sitting on the middle one of three what seemed to be almost thrones, a mahogany-haired man with equally as pale skin and stunning beauty as Heidi strangled his expressed satisfaction and spoke up._

_"Welcome to Volterra," he greeted the tourists with a sadistic smirk, not once breaking eye contact with select members of the group. "We greatly appreciate your sacrifice."_

_At his words, pale and supernaturally beautiful creatures dressed entirely in black surrounded the frightened crowd from all sides, pouncing at random tourists without hesitance. Screams of agony and panic were everywhere, seemingly filling out the dome-like room entirely. Trying to become invisible in the middle of the panicked group, Helena sat down, clutching her arms to her legs tightly, mentally reminding herself not to cry or make any noise as her clothed were stained with blood, and closed her eyes._

Helena's eyes shot open, only to find herself several meters behind the others in the poorly lit hallway.

"Hurry up!" Heidi's voice echoed from the front of the crowd, clearly directed at her.

All pain, the headache, the dizziness had vanished into nothingness. Here she was, eyes wide open, surrounded by a group of tourists she knew to be brutally murdered in less than a minute, supervised by a 'tour guide' that had led them straight into doom. She knew it all, every detail of it, no matter how gruesome it was. Desperately she turned, looking around for a possible way to run, but was cut of by a cold hand grasping her arm.

"I said hurry up," Heidi hissed, hastily making her way to the head of the crowd again with Helena in tow.

In that moment, Helena knew, her fate had been sealed. Heidi had made every single possible move of escape impossible, and judging by how many of the strange eyed creatures there seemed to be in this castle and how quickly they had pounced in her vision, warning the other tourists seemed entirely pointless. If she did, Heidi would only have them killed earlier. And where was the point in that?

No, Helena decided. She would give the tourists some last oblivious moments.

Shortly later, a heavy wooden door alike the one in Helena's vision appeared at the end of the corridor. Heidi's ice cold grip around her hand tightened by the meter, but somehow, she failed to feel panic. As the only tourist in the crowd, Helena knew that she would die, giving her an advantage — the slightly morbid advantage of coming to terms with the fact.

No, she thought, I'm not frightened anymore.

She would stick to the choreography of the vision — somehow manage to get to the center of the group, then try to be silent while cowering on the floor. It would give her some more valuable seconds, eventhough Helena was not quite sure what she would need them for.

As they reached the door, Heidi gestured for the crowd to halt. "This," she said, pointing towards the door, "Is the door of no return. In an old Italian legend, whoever dares to walk across its threshold will not emerge from it again."

Helena closed her eyes, trying to tune Heidi and her terrible dramatically ironic attempt of humour out.

She chuckled. "But we're not afraid, now, are we? Come, we will go through it."

Seemingly effortlessly, the door was thrown open and Helena reopened her eyes. Far away, she could see the thrones, the dome, the expensive-looking marble flooring on which she would soon sit, hoping to hide herself. Quickly, Heidi ushered her inside, but as soon as she knew Helena was trapped in the middle of the others, she let go of her hand, hastily closing the doors.

Helena knew that this was were the events of her vision had started, but she was not afraid. Helena knew what was coming. She could have closed her eyes, once again trying to tune out an unwanted detail, but her eyes remained open, determinedly. Instead of taking a last deep breath, she curiously stared at the creatures on the sides of the room, the only tourist to not once flinch or succumb into a state of uncontrolled panic.

In the last few seconds of her young life, she was determined not to miss a thing.

It was only milliseconds after this last thought as, a telltale of Helena's certain demise, a childlike, somehow smooth sounding laughter errupted from the other end of the room. She knew without looking that it originated from the man on the middle throne, the one with the mahogany hair. She knew that in a second, he would speak up. And she knew that with these fateful words, he would give an order that would end her fellow tourists lifes as well as her own.

"Welcome to Volterra," the words sounded shortly later, and Helena finally turned towards him. Exactly alike the man in the vision, there was a sadistic smirk on his face. Unlike the vision, however, Helena recognized with horror that she herself was one of the unlucky individuals he insisted on not breaking eye contact with.

"We greatly appreciate your sacrifice."

Before the pale creatures from her vision even obtained a chance to pounce, Helena had already allowed her legs to give in on her. As the first screams sounded, agonized and desperate, she had already clutched her arms to her legs, slowed down her breathing and heartrate as best as she could and done everything in her power not to make a sound. Having had the advantage of the vision, she did not need to remind herself not to cry, grateful for every second more she was allowed to live through. And she did not close her eyes.

Blood and screams were all around her, but she did what she could, sticking to her plan, to keep calm and quiet.

Her plan had supplied Helena with exactly 47 seconds, before she, her clothes stained with blood, felt a cold touch on her shoulder.

Cautiously she looked up, only to see a man, if that was indeed the correct term, in his late twenties, long brown hair framing his long, elegant face. For a split second his bright crimson eyes frightened her, but she quickly caught herself.

"Go on," Helena whispered apathetically. "I won't stop you. It's no use, anyways."

There were surprise and interest in his eyes as he approached her, and before she could even blink, Helena felt an icy cold breath on her neck. Bracing herself for what was to come, she took a deep breath and stared off into the void, reliving her happiest memories. Her first day of school. The day she had found and adopted Luna, her pet cat. Her first kiss. Graduation. Being given the car by her parents. Italy — or at least the anticipation and first actual minutes of it.

She felt herself being drawn back to reality as a high-pietched shriek sounded a few meters behind her. Turning towards it, yet still keeping her neck entirely exposed, she saw a maybe sixteen year-old male teenager with red hair fall onto the ground, deadly pale, the mahogany-haired man smirking down at his victim as he quickly wiped his remaining blood from his mouth.

"Marcus?" the man asked once he had cleaned himself up, concern in his voice. Immediately, all eyes turned on the brown-haired male to her side, and she realized with a shock that except of her, all tourists were lying inanimately on the marble, equally as pale as the boy, huge bitewounds on their necks and wrists.

Vampires.

"Is everything all right?" The man continued, seemingly worried. "Why are you not feeding...?"

The man named Marcus sighed, silently stretching out his right hand towards the mahogany-haired man. Instantly he took it, closing his eyes in concentration.

"My, my," he commented as his crimson eyes shot open, suddenly staring at Helena with surprise and interest similar to Marcus's. And in a matter of seconds, life as Helena Tenuis had known it changed forever.

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_**Author's Note**__: So? How'd y'all like it? =)_

_This is my first try at an entirely dramatic and tragic fanfiction, and it will be fairly short — three chapters in total. I hope Part I was okay, though. So, please... you know the drill... leave behind a __review__, good or bad. If you decide to critize though, please stay constructive._

_Also, just because I think this belongs here: the core if this story, which will be revealed in later chapters, was developed together with my awesome friend _DieCullensDie_, who'll post a story of similar length and core in the forseeable future. So stay on the lookout for that, too._


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